The meaning of the Hebrew word Nephilim has long been
a point of debate amongst Biblical scholars. Although
often seen as fallen angels, giants, or even alien
invaders the Nephilim are more likely to be identified
as despotic rulers of antiquity who take the place of a
missing cosmological generation in the Bible. There was
one ancient theory that they were angels cast out of
Heaven and yet another that they were the mortal sons of
Seth (the third son of Adam), who had taken to an evil
path. The facts may lead to the conclusion that they
were both.

In the classic Hebrew rabbinical interpretation the
Nephilim were the tyrannical rulers of the ancient world
whose evil deeds provoked God to cause the Great Flood.
After an enlightened start on the path to civilization,
these men, the sons of Seth, followed in the sinful
steps of great uncle Cain until such a time that only
Noah and his family were left as righteous people. Built
upon this tradition are a number of divergent ones. This
includes modern speculation of extraterrestrial
involvement or identification of the Nephilim as a race
of giants. The alien theory however is actually nothing
less than a scientific version of the angel theory and
the giant theory hinges on the connection with the
generations of the sons of Seth, so the real
investigation is within the ancient sources.

Primary Sources

The original account of the Nephilim in Genesis 6:4
can reasonably be dated to ca. 6th century BCE. It
appears that within a few centuries of the writing of
Genesis an expanded account of Nephilim Mythology
developed. In a number of Jewish texts such as the
Book of Enoch the Nephilim are outcast members of
Heaven's angelic host who willingly followed their
leader in defiance of God.

The interpretation of the Nephilim as supernatural
giants developed into the Early Middle Ages with the
Talmudic text Targum Pseudo-Jonathan This text
again identifies the Nephilim as clearly being
supernatural creatures of angelic origin. This
account is hard to date but can be reasonably placed
between the 8th and 14th Centuries CE and was likely a
key influence on Christian Medieval writings that
speculate on either the angelic or demonic personas of
the Nephilim.

The Fallen Ones

Much of the inherent confusion over the Nephilim
appears to arise from the translation of the word itself
between Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and now into modern
languages.

The most common etymological definition of Nephilim
is "Fallen Ones" apparently indicating they had fallen
out of the sky/Heaven and/or perhaps having lost a
divine status. The confusion over the nature of the
Nephilim is in part related to the construction of the
word itself. The Hebrew word nephyl, which is
transcribed as Nephilim, is defined, according to the
Talmudic tradition, as a feller, bully or tyrant. The
root verb is nphal, to fall, perish, be
overthrown etc. Hence a Nephilim is a feller, more
properly understood as "one who causes others to fall"
rather than as a "fallen one".

This confusion over this translation is compounded by
the interchange between the terms Nephilim and Anakim
which are etymologically unrelated apart from one
association in the Biblical Book of Numbers. However
some scholarly traditions readily translate both terms
to mean "giant" and this mistake will be explained
below.

Nephilim In Context

To further understand the Nephilim it is necessary to
place them in context within the Biblical narrative.
They are mentioned only twice in the Bible, the first
time during a recollection of the events that preceded
the Great Flood.

The Nephilim were in the earth in those days, and
also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the
daughters of men, and they bore children to them; the
same were the mighty men that were of old, the men of
renown.(Genesis 6: 4)

The second time they are mentioned is in a report
given by some spies whom Moses had sent into Canaan to
get the lay of the land.

And there we saw the Nephilim, the sons of Anak, who
come of the Nephilim; and we were in our own sight as
grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight (Numbers
13:33)

Anak was a warlord known to the Israelites as they
made their way to Canaan. He was said to be unusually
tall as were his warriors. According to the reports the
spies were very intimidated by what they saw. Based on
this text there is no reason to suppose that Anak and
his sons were anything other than physically imposing
warriors fitting the description of the tyrants in the
classic tradition.

However this identification of the sons of Anak, the
Anakim, with the Nephilim led some ancient Jewish
writers who were following the Torah Chronology, such as
the authors of the Book of Enoch, to speculate on
how a portion of the Nephilim had survived the Deluge.
Part of this explanation was that the only way they
could have survived the world destroying flood was if
they were at least in part divine.

Josephus, in his 1st century work, Jewish
Antiquities compares the exploits of the Nephilim to
the giants of Olympian Mythology. The Olympian giants
are the sons of the primal gods and indeed like the
Nephilim they were very threatening to ordinary men.
This reference in Antiquities entrenched the
Nephilim/giant connection with subsequent centuries of
scholars turning Josephus's comparison between the
Nephilim and Olympian giants into an equation

Sons of God

In both Biblical passages from Genesis the Nephilim
could easily be seen as tyrants and usurpers but the
reference to the sons of God has caused some difficulty,
seeming to imply a divine lineage present on earth.

The term for son in the Hebrew is ben, which
can indicate a variety of relationships from actual
family ties to affiliation with a group or nation. In
this case, sons of God, sometimes interpreted as
"angels" is then, benei haelohim. The word for
God is Elohim which refers to the Bronze Age
Canaanite pantheon of deities fathered by the chief
deity El. However in the Biblical context the word does
not necessarily denote that a pantheon of gods was
worshipped by the Hebrews. Yet the fact that most Judaic
Angelic names contain the suffix "el" makes the
connection clear.

By the time of Josephus much of the mythology of the
Western World was seen from a Greek perspective. There
was parity given between gods such as Zeus (son of
Cronos), Jupiter (son of Saturn) Baal Haddad (son of
El), Ammun-Ra (son of Nu) and Marduk (son of Ea).
Yahweh, the patron deity of the Jerusalem region from
middle of the 2nd millennium BCE, entered the scene as
another son of El and in Canaan he contested the
ascendency of Baal Haddad.

All of these gods were part of a series of
cosmological generations which in the past had a part in
the chaos from which the world emerged thanks to the
order implemented by the creator god. In each of these
mythos there are creatures which contemporary
storytelling cannot help but equate with the giants of
Western Folklore. One such primal monster from the
Hurrian Mythos with whom the gods were forced to contend
was Ullikummi, who is described as a living mountain. In
this context it is easy to see the tales in the Book
of Enoch, of rebellious angelic hosts in conflict
with the forces of Heaven, falling neatly in line with
Near Eastern cosmological mythology.

However as ancient Hebrew mythology transformed
itself into modern Judaic lore the focus on the
imperative of generational struggles between hero-gods
and these primal deities was all but removed from the
lexicons. Hence the Book of Enoch's label as
Pseudepigrapha, indicating a Judeo-Christian texts
exclusion from the Bible.

By the Post Exilic Period, ca. 5th century BCE,the emphasis was on Yahweh as a stand-alone deity
who shaped the world in perfection and without any
supernatural by blows. Manifest evil was thought to have
developed when Adam and Eve gave into temptations in the
Garden of Eden. Evil was not as the result of gods
fighting each other or manipulating mortals into
violence as in other mythos.

Thus the cosmological generational dynamic to which
Hesiod devotes much of his Theogony is relegated
to only one sentence in the Bible and the Nephilim are
inserted as a mere mythological place holder. Although
the ancient Jews may have had real world tyrants in mind
when they used word Nephilim, they nevertheless painted
them as players, albeit minor ones, in the Biblical
cosmology. This should not be necessarily seen as an
acknowledgement of any other creator gods but rather as
an obligatory part of the storytelling process which is
revealed throughout antiquity in such places as the
Prologue of Greek theatre.

Divine Kingship

Although the ancient Hebrews choose to exclude Yahweh
from the pantheistic conflicts that had defined the
cosmologies of most ancient myths they were no doubt
aware of the pantheistic world in which they lived.
Hence the Hebrews made it a point to call out by name
"false" gods such as Baal. The cults of Yahweh's rivals
were a real threat to the goal of Hebrew cultural
preservation which was likely a prime motivator for the
writers of Genesis. Indeed it may well be that it is
these cultists, and not the divine generations
themselves, that are being referenced with the term
benei haelohim.

Considering this the sons of God may be understood as
followers of the old cults which were forbidden by the
Jewish covenant with Yahweh. According to the ancient
Judaic traditions, related by Josephus, the sons of God
are indeed the descendents of the old aristocratic
families that had ruled in the Ancient Near East for
centuries. In many cases the connection between these
families and the gods goes back to an ancestor of divine
status.

Therefore the relationship between the Nephilim and
the forbidden gods can also be understood in the context
of the history of divine kingship. Many ancient monarchs
stylized themselves as the servants of gods, sons of
gods or even divine kings going back to the very dawn of
civilization. All of this was anathema to the Post
Exilic Jews.

In fact one potent nemesis of the Jewish people,
Nebuchadnezzar, the King of Babylon, kept this tradition
alive with his name which means "[the god]Nebo has
protected the succession-rights." It is even reasonable
to suggest that some of the writers of Genesis were
contemporaries of Nebuchadnezzar and had him or his
relations in mind as they wrote their cosmology. Bronze
Age and Iron Age despots had often violently imposed
there "divine" will upon their subjects, and more than
once the Jews themselves had fallen victim to this
violence, hence the condemnation of the Nephilim by the
writers of Genesis.

In an interesting twist of history as the Hebrew
Bible became the Christian Bible it did finally succumb
to the mythological imperative of the progression of
divine cosmological generations. Which is why the "Old
Testament" is now customarily appended by the "New." In
fact the New Testament embraces many of the notions of
the Pseudepigrapha including the concept of
legions of angels together with rival legions of devils
and demons. This mythological evolution allowed the
Nephilim, incorrectly labeled as "Fallen Ones," to
assume a place in the Christian Cosmology that was
denied to them by the Judaic.